Mario Birthday Part 2 – Kiwi turtles, carrot flowers, cheese coin blocks
I told you that birthdays are all about the cake and food around here. Well it’s not limited to just the party. On your birthday, you get a special dinner. For me growing up, that meant every birthday I request spaghetti. My mom didn’t like it but it was my absolute favorite (I *still* adore it), so it was a big treat for me.
Well for the Mario birthday, I decided to just run with it. N loves sub sandwiches, so we were going to be having those. I considered making whole wheat buns and trying to make them look like goombas, but because I already had lots of fondant goombas from the cake, I went a different route and served veggies and fruits with standard subs. She loves veggies and fruits, too, so it wasn’t a stretch at all.
And of course, they were a huge, huge hit. She wasn’t expecting anything “themed” for her birthday dinner, so she was thoroughly surprised at supper time. She was so full from cake and such a few hours before that she couldn’t finish her food, though. She looked like she was going to cry before it was suggested she just wrap her plate, put it in the fridge, and save it for the next day. Starts of tears quickly turned to twinkling and there were bits of more excitement the following day when she got to experience it all over again!
Here are a few more pictures of her personalized vegetable tray:
Extra large pocky wands (chocolate covered pretzel rods or sesame sticks)
rThat’s what the kids described them as anyway. The teen loves pocky but it’s not easily accessible where we live. Basically, she used to be able to get it at the bowling alley, but it’s not exactly cheap, she and her friends aren’t exactly rich, and they aren’t huge bowlers either.
She’d been begging me to try to make pocky myself, but I got really lucky and this turned out tasting like it instead. I was expecting them to taste like chocolate covered pretzels, but turns out, those are large sesame sticks….and are much softer than hard pretzel rods. I broke several just while trying to dip them in chocolate.
I had made these as a last minute appetizer to hold the kids over at a birthday party. The food wasn’t going to be ready for a little while longer, but I knew everyone was hungry. I don’t even buy sprinkles, but a friend of the family had passed a box of stuff she’d never use on to us, and there was a tiny container of those lovely pink, red, and white sprinkles up there. Perfect!
Ultimately, they were a *huge* hit, especially for such a last minute idea. I scored a million extra bonus points for them tasting like pocky and the begging for more has increase 10x. Unfortunately, sesame sticks were a random purchase at a store that had them as a feature item, and I haven’t seen them since. Maybe I could find them online?
Tip – Turn these into a themed item. Have a Harry Potter fan? Skip the sprinkles. Got a magician on board? Dip the whole thing in dark chocolate and just the tip into white chocolate. Get creative!
Tip – Whether you’re using fragile sticks like this or normal pretzel rods, lay them across a 9×13 pan (or an appropriate size depending on the size of yours). Avoid letting the chocolate end touch the pan as much as possible to avoid sticking. Toss them in the freezer for a quick set so your treat will be ready in a matter of minutes.
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